Shadows & Tall Trees (27 page)

An apartment on the bottom floor was almost always vacant during the day, both owners presumably at work, or looking for it. One morning, sitting in front of his computer with a cup of coffee, working down the list of companies he’d send his résumé to that day, he decided he’d go to the next step with that apartment. Standing half-up out of his chair to kiss Carolyn goodbye. Listening for the sound of their front door opening. Closing. As if, as soon as he was sure she’d be gone for the day, he was going to masturbate.

He waited a long half-hour, to be certain. Digits turning at a slow, slow, slow rate as he counted down.

At the half-hour, Don rose from his chair. Urinated, so he could stay inside the walls as long as possible.

Crawling the lengths of the spaces, going down through the square openings, he became a little disoriented, as he often did, but eventually he arrived at what he thought was the correct peep hole. Brought his right eye up to its ragged circle. Looked through.

This was it! The refrigerator with the snapshots pressed to its front by different cartoon magnets.

Hunched over, he made his way to the small dwarf door of the apartment.

What if the door was locked?

Anxiety.

But his and Carolyn’s door didn’t have a lock. Why would you have a lock for a crawlspace door? Reached his hand out, turned the latch.

The latch tilted.

The door swung open.

Beyond, another couple’s kitchen.

Stooped over, like some invading troll, he emerged from their crawl space. Stood up.

The oddest feeling, doing something he knew was wrong. It reminded him of one evening when he was quite young, walking home from a friend’s birthday party. He cut across some backyards, happened to glance up at a silent house, to make sure he hadn’t been spotted, saw a lit second story window and, in its black frame, a woman removing her clothes. She wasn’t young, and she wasn’t slim, but he stayed rooted to that spot on the back lawn, staring. Fascinated. In the years to come he would see a number of women’s naked bodies, all of them more beautiful than this body, but the one he always recalled the most was hers. It was like looking into the future, to where women without clothes would be in his life. It was like solving—or at least, starting to solve—one of the world’s great mysteries.

He advanced across the kitchen’s vinyl floor, intensely aware the front door might open at any moment. He was a burglar. Stealing into someone else’s life. The thought thrilled him. And made him realize how dull his adult life had become.

The refrigerator with the cartoon magnets. He looked at the photographs on its white door. For the first time he could actually see what they showed. About a dozen pictures in all. A young man and woman. Early twenties. Together. Big smiles, happy eyes. Her showing some leg. Him, shirt off, flexing. One of those photo booth strips of four square pictures taken seconds apart, their distorted faces too close to the lens. He felt a pang of jealousy. They reminded him of himself and Carolyn, when they were first starting out. Deliriously happy. Dirt poor.

On an impulse, he opened the refrigerator door, the interior light automatically coming on. A package of twin steaks, probably being saved for Friday night, one of the cheaper cuts. Some beers. A tall bottle of inexpensive white wine. Three different kinds of lettuce. Fresh grapes. He realized he was crying.

Reached inside. Plucked from the cluster a single cold, green grape. Put it between his lips. Bit down, feeling within his mouth the mild burst, the sudden release of juice, sweetness. It had been a long, long time since he had eaten a grape. Maybe it just felt that way.

Don slammed the fridge shut when he realized he’d helped himself to several more of them. Opened it again, broke away the telltale stems that pointed at what was missing. Pocketed them.

One of the photos had been knocked askew on the fridge door. He straightened it, kept his fingers on its edges a moment wondering why he was so struck by the image of husband and wife cutting wedding cake.

In other rooms, more evidence of their happiness. A full vase of flowers, tall and fresh and colourful. One of the caricature portraits tourists buy, her all smiles and cheekbones, him squeezing her fit-to-pop with arms more muscular than any workout could produce. Don looked at the books they’d read, crammed on shelves, books they were reading, left on bedside tables. He went to the bathroom, checked the medicine cabinet. Sprayed her perfume because he loved the clean floral smell of her brand and knew he couldn’t afford it for Carolyn anymore.

Don walked a floor plan that was the same as his, only reversed. Opened cupboards. Looked in drawers. The delicious thrill of trespass faded, replaced by a sense of familiarity that went beyond the layout; he’d had this, once. Not the rooms, the walls, the floors—those he had
now
—but everything contained within the space between had once been his and Carolyn’s.

He peed in their toilet, flushed, washed his hands... and realized how long he’d lingered. A whole bladderful of time had passed. He said to his reflection, “What are you doing?” and had no answer.

He went to the dwarf door and climbed back home. Shrinking, diminishing, crawling away.

Carolyn came in smelling the air. “Mmm.” Saw the wine on the table, said it again; “
Mmm
.”

Don handed her a glass then checked under the broiler releasing more of the delicious aroma that had already filled the apartment.

“Steaks?” Carolyn peeked at the meat, sizzling and spitting its juices.

“I was inspired.”

Carolyn beamed a smile at him, bounced a little on the spot. “You got a job!” Saw his smile slip. “Oh, I just thought—”

“I sent out more résumés. Made more enquiries. Couple of places look okay.”

“That’s good.” She sat at the table, picked at the small bunch of grapes Don had set beside the wine bottle. Her eyes were on something far away.

Don prepared a light salad—three different lettuces—and saw that already the leaves were browning, beginning to wilt.

After dinner, after Carolyn’s shower (“I miss our bathtub”), they decided to make love.

“What’s the matter?” Carolyn asked him eventually.

“Everything,” he wanted to say. “Nothing. I don’t know.”

“Is it me?”

It wasn’t. It really wasn’t. Carolyn was beautiful. Don still thought so, was still as aroused by her body as he was comforted by its familiarity. He gathered her into his arms so he didn’t have to say any of this, and she believed him.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Really. It’s just stress.”

He stroked her hair, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and wondered what everybody else was doing in their own homes.

“You’ll find a place again.”

Her words followed him into dreams of corridors that turned on him and doors that only closed.

By lunch he’d sent his résumé and portfolio to a dozen other places. Altered copy-and-paste cover letters, “. . . be grateful if you would consider me for . . . appreciate the opportunity to work at . . . happy to negotiate . . .” Positions he’d held two promotions ago, at companies undergraduates applied to as backups.

“What am I
doing
?” he asked the screen after the final “send”. He didn’t know. He never knew anymore. What else
could
he do? He had no answer for that either.

The monitor was suddenly filled with the twists and turns of the never-ending pipes of his screensaver.

Don went to the kitchen. He didn’t bother with lunch, ignored the “eat me drink me” temptation of the refrigerator, and went straight to the tiny door in the wall.

Climbing around inside the walls reminded him of when he used to commute to work. All by himself, steering, crawling. Then there he’d be, with people again. A part.

A floor somewhere below them housed an elderly couple who seemed to never go out. Peepholes in all their rooms, although out of respect for their privacy he never leaned his eye against the one for their bathroom.

All day long they’d sit in the living room, watching TV. He always knew when his shuffling hands and knees were approaching their apartment by the booming noise of weather reports and commercials, soap operas and old comedies in the dimly-lit wall space. He’d sit behind these walls for hours, watching TV with them. Despite the volume, it was peaceful. Reassuring. They had succeeded. Whatever challenges they had gone through in life, they had survived. Over the long decades; first friends, then lovers, then friends again. Who now needed no conversation, just each other’s presence. In the stillness of their rooms she would rise to fix them lunch, a sandwich they would share, one triangular half for each; he would trudge over to get a blanket for her knees as she sat, tilt into his palm her day’s regimen of pills. Going to the pantry to get the other an extra paper napkin for a particularly messy meal substituted for hours of late night drunken conversations; a veined hand on a shoulder took the place of a sunny afternoon’s rolling around on a bed sheet. They had reached the clearing. They had found the peaceful pond at the end of life.

Would he and Carolyn ever reach that green pond? Ever hold old hands, watching the dragonflies buzz their four wings above the tossed stone’s ripples?

He crawled back to his own apartment. Stood outside the dwarf door. Shut it with his foot. Dusted his shoulders, the knees of his pants.

An email was waiting for him.

He used his palms to wipe sweaty hair from his forehead, then reached down to the mouse and double-clicked.

Scanned the reply, ready for disappointment.

Sat up.

Have a need for someone with your background. Impressed by your résumé. A mutually convenient time for you to come in for an interview, to meet with the key members of our team. We want to move quickly on this. A fast-growing company that could use someone with your expertise. We are willing to meet your salary requirements, and offer a generous benefits package.

He sat in front of his computer, stunned.

After all this time.

A projection into the near future. Acting nonchalant when Carolyn came home, then holding out the printed email. Watching her read it, then her blue eyes looking up over the top edge of the white page, at him. With admiration.

Flexed his fingers. Cracked his knuckles.

Fingertips on the keyboard.

Paused.

Typed.

Thank you for your quick response. I do believe I’d be a perfect fit with your company. And in fact I managed the installation of the Fizzsys software you’ve just purchased, and know how to implement it across systems.

However, something’s come up in my personal life. I won’t be available for an interview for at least a month. I need to stay here, in my home, to explore my current project, until then. I hope you understand.

Reply to his email, twenty minutes later. Ping. Opened it, heart loud in the walls of his chest.

They didn’t understand. The Chief of Operations was polite. Every word was meant to be soothing. They were going to explore other options.

He went back into the walls. Where else did he have to go?

He was so happy in these narrow corridors! A wall away from the world and all of its demands. A space where he could just watch, passively, as life went on. Trying to forget that he had just lost a job opportunity, that money was getting tight. The big blue numbers in their checkbook getting smaller and smaller.